Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy -- meditate on these things.

4/24 - Jeremiah figured out his thumb! It's the left one he sucks. Does this mean I'll finally get a left-hander?

4/26 - Sometimes when school runs past noon, Joy decides to get lunch for herself. Usually, she doesn't do too badly of a job - cheese and crackers, cereal, an apple or banana. This day, however, she got into Jonathan's chocolate stash and ate half a milk chocolate ovomaltine bar!

4/29 - Faith came up to me and said, "Mom, say, 'little boat' ten times fast."

4/29 - Jeremiah likes to watch his fist, moving his hand and wrist. I like this stage. I like lots of stages. (:

5/7 - Joy can say the /k/ sound now! She doesn't yet use it in all the words that have it, but is increasing her use.

5/7 - This was the day Joy got out a nice lunch. Leftover soup, poured into her own bowl, cheese, which she sliced with the cheese cutter, and a box of oatmeal packets which she opened but didn't prepare.

3/30 - Jeremiah started cooing. He also can make minimal forward progress along the bed when waking up.

Joy says "my do it" for many things. She also pronounces "water" correctly now instead of saying "wow". She's also really good at remembering to say thank you. (Sounds like "dankt you")

4/7 - Jonathan, as we were walking to church: "The air tastes fresh and crisp like a Cortland apple." (This is from the boy who during school time says he can't write poetry. I think what he really means is he doesn't like to write poetry when constrained by meter and rhyme.)

4/17 - Joy, starting to progress to full sentences, "Uh-oh, where my coat?"

That same evening, Joy put away the pasta sauce from dinner, scooping it out of the pot into a container all by herself. Yes, there were drips on the table, but not too bad, really.

4/22 - We had a young friend over for lunch, and she wondered if Mr. Daley was going to come have lunch. Here is Noah's response, summarizing Daddy's life: "He sleeps, then he eats breakfast, then he works, works, works, then he eats dinner, then he sleeps, then he eats breakfast, then he works, works, works, ..."

I might add, on some days, some more "works, works, works" after dinner and before sleep. I hope his customers are thankful for him! (We are thankful for them - and him!)

4/22 - Me, to Joy, "Why is your hair all wet?" Joy, "Um . . . water?"

A picture of Jonathan at about 3-4 months came up on our computer - it has been confirmed: Jeremiah looks like Jonathan! Joy was convinced it was "Miah".

9/19 - Joy has been telling me when she needs a new diaper (patting her bottom) but this day, she got out the changing pad and wipes, set up the pad on the bathroom floor, put a new diaper on top of the wipes box, lay down on the pad, and called for me.

9/20 - Noah is definitely our hands-on guy. He asks for crafts related to what we do in school. When we read a book about archaeology, he immediately wanted to go dig in the back yard. He got a trowel and a sieve and a container to hold his treasures and happily dug and sifted for a long time.

~9/20 - Joy can say, "ow".

9/25 - Joy put on her own socks all by herself. Before this, she had successfully put on mine.

9/27 - Joy says "please" to go with her sign. It sounds like "wee".

9/27 - Sounding the same, but in a different context. When she plays with the abacus, she says, "wee, wee, wee" as she movs the beads. 9/28 - She also "counted" "wee, wee, wee" when playing with the corners cards.

9/28 - Faith really wanted to play Corners with me, so I made up a version she can do. (The "real" game involves finding numbers that add up to 5, 10, 15, or 20.) We played where we had to match the color and the numeral. Faith loved it! (More)

6/7 - Noah's first lost tooth. Bottom left front. It took a very long time for it to come out. He doesn't play with it at all..

Joy was sitting on the couch. Faith wanted to do a trick, so we asked Joy to get down. She did it willingly, waited for Faith to do her trick, and then climbed back up, without complaining.

6/20 - Noah's right bottom front tooth came out. He was eating a cookie. The tooth was chocolatey, so he went to wash it off, but then the tooth went down the drain.

~6/30 Joy steps down two stairs like a big person.

8/10 - Faith can pump a swing needing only one starter push.

8/14 - Joy was having a fun time in the bath, leaning back, nearly floating on her bath, then putting her face in, over and over.

8/20 - Noah's front right upper tooth is lost. He says, "I'm going to get money." Jon asks, "How do you know?" Faith pipes up, "Because Mommy is a fairy!"

All four of Joy's canines have appeared since the move. I did not pay enough attention to note dates for them.

8/24 - Noah did the monkey bars at the playground all by himself.

8/27 - We're at the playground. I can't hear the boys' conversation, but then I hear Noah shouting defensively, "I'm not a homo sapien!" You might imagine that until he finished the second word I was concerned that Jonathan was talking inappropriately. But I could not help but laugh when I heard what the accusation had been.

9/1 - We were visiting our next door neighbor's yard sale. The lady said "hi" to us and I said, "Say, 'hi'". Faith got all shy, and hid into me. But then I heard from the stroller, "Hi!" Joy said it several times!

9/6 - Faith's 4th birthday! It was a really fun day. We went for a walk, we went to the playground, Grammy took her out for ice cream. They had a grand old time with balloons. We had a dinner of pizza, pasta, and salad. Then Faith opened her presents, and then we had cherry 'o cheese pie and ice cream with sprinkles. (Faith actually skipped the ice cream in the evening because she had had hers earlier with Grammy). Faith's review? "That did be the funnest birthday I ever had!"

June 15, we sold the house we were living in and drove to New Hampshire in two moving trucks and a minivan. (A very hearty and grateful "thank you!" to Ron and Ron for driving the trucks!)

The days preceding that day were extremely full, including two funerals for people from families dear enough that we felt it necessary to carve out the time to spend with them.

We did not technically buy our new house for another couple of days, but it did eventually work out.

We are staying at Jon's parents' house while renovating our new house. This is for the very most part a good thing. The only disadvantages we've found so far involve having things in two places.

Renovations are right now at the "rather overwhelming" stage. There's a lot of work to do and we wonder how it will all get done.

At the end of June, we took a break to spend a week at the Maggie P with lots of family, including the Swiss cousins, and Noah and Joseph had their birthday together.

After we got back, Jonathan, Noah and Faith had two weeks of swimming lessons at the lake. Jonathan started learning official strokes, and Noah got to the confidence level Jonathan had last summer. Faith made progress in being comfortable in the water as well, though she still wouldn't put her head under by the end of the sessions.

For the past week, Jon and Noah have been in Pittsburgh finishing the fixing up of Carroll St, and getting some work done for Lime Daley customers.

I've been meeting with a bunch of contractors - plumbing/heating, painter, plasterer, chimney guys. A local college student has been coming over nearly every day for a few hours to scrape wallpaper. It turns out when you start taking down wallpaper, it just goes and goes and soon you have two whole hallways including staircase of wallpaper to take off. About four layers of it, too, a hundred years' worth.

Speaking of a hundred years. Jon took off part of one wall in preparation for building a built-in bookcase, and he found a treasure! A Mother's Day postcard from 1912, from the Sunday School of Smith Church (Jon's parents' church). It is really neat. We're going to copy one side and then frame it with the copy so you can see both sides.

Time to start getting ready for bed. I will try to post updates more frequently, but it's hard to find the moments. Tonight, I found myself alone with the computer while all the kids were outside playing with the neighbors. After some grueling looking at curriculum stuff, I thought I'd have a nice little blog time. (:

5/24 - I don't remember the context, but the quote from Jonathan is, "Well, the definition of 'Mom' is basically 'tired person'."

5/25 - Noah showed me his newfound skill of pumping a swing from standstill to as high as he wants. To me, it is one of those things that is an "all of a sudden". Just the week before, I was thinking it was about time he could do it but it just didn't seem like it was happening. Then it just clicked and he can do it.

5/25 - Faith has said this for a while but I thought I'd record it. "Company" has the "an" and "y" switched, plus the sub /c/ for /t/, so it sounds like "tumpyan." Very hard to understand if you don't get the context, but still kind of cute.

5/26 - Noah called the boat fender the "defender".

5/30 - I got up early to go to the bathroom. When I was washing my hands, I heard a clear, distinct, "Mommy!" coming from the bedroom. I thought it was strange for Faith to be up so early, but when I got in, I saw Faith sound asleep. It was Joy who was sitting up and waiting patiently for me to answer her call! Since then, she calls me by name a lot and it is so sweet.

Certain relatives might be interested in knowing that Jonathan's list of books he wanted to keep out until the last minute are D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, his children's Dictionary, one Calvin and Hobbes book, and one Asterix book.

4/11 - Jonathan likes to be creative with lunches. He made dill pickle and mustard sandwiches that day. He liked it.

As I was keeping track of rainbows I was struck by how many days were sunny. April 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 25

4/14 - Faith's first time successfully saying her name to a stranger. A major victory! Even still, she doesn't like to do it.

4/16 - Joy's bottom right molar came in

4/18 - We had a very fun afternoon playing family soccer in the back yard. It started out with rather evenly-numbered teams and then progressed to all of us against Daddy only kicking with his left foot. He still beat us. But when we switched goals we managed to get half his score instead of zero. Then we played "ball soccer" which is basically do whatever you want to get the ball to the goal. It was a super fun time! (More)

Last catchup ended on the weekend of the fire company banquet. That weekend was also the beginning of the new adventure. Two different people called up to ask about looking to buy our house. No, not the one we're fixing up to sell. The one we're living in. Well, ok, I guess you can come see it, but we're not really thinking of moving. That weekend, Jon is also showing the rental house to someone who might buy it before we finish fixing it up. Jon ramps up looking online at houses in Hillsboro.

3/12 - Noah and Faith are supposed to be doing chores. Faith says her hair is getting in the way. So Noah cuts it for her. They are both very happy with the results. I try to remain serious while explaining why this was not a good idea, but have a hard time not laughing. I think I succeeded. For a five year old, Noah really did a good job. We did go to a place to get the back straightened out a bit. And maybe next time I'll try it myself and save the money (not too much doubt on my part that there will be a next time for somebody.) It is very cute, anyway. (More)

2/6 - Joy went down a whole flight of stairs successfully. She slides down forwards on her bottom. Faith was with her this time. By now, she's an old pro at stairs.

I bought some mini hair clips for Faith. They are the normal clear, brown, black, swirly brown that hair clips often are. But as soon as Faith saw the swirly brown ones, she said, "Cool! Camo hair clips!" Then she does that macho guy stance that the boys do when they're being or doing something heroic. (:

Grandma, whose time is quite full with two grandchildren, is still itching for a blog post about the others, so here it is.

I found an old piece of paper witih some notes on it and just searched our blog - I did already post it and it was from 2008!

Ok, here we go:

12/22/2011 - Faith, after listening to the Hallelujah Chorus. "That did be a lot of hallelujah!"

12/23 - We were visiting an older aunt and uncle (more like great-grand-aunt really) and Aunt Doris was playing with Joy's toes. She asked me, "Do the piggies still go to the market?" As in, do young mothers these days still play that game? But Faith answered her, "No, only the big one does."

11/26 - Joy climbed up a whole flight of stairs. This was the first time she had done more than one small step. She was so thrilled with her newfound skill that she did it three times that day.

12/1 - The next first is Joy fell down the stairs. But now the older kids are better at making sure someone is behind her when she climbs.

12/5 - Noah was partitioning 6 out loud during breakfast (5 and 1, 4 and 2, etc.) Then Jonathan asked him how many 5s in 20. Noah thought it was too hard (so did I) but Jonathan was patient and gave good, constructive hints. He asked how many 5s in 10, then how many 10s in 20, and Noah got those, then was able to make the jump to solve the original problem correctly. Then he got how many 5s in 40. So cool!

12/9 - It seems Jonathan has been reading too many spy books without current historical context. It just so happened that a Russian company hacked into a merchant's credit card swipers and stole our (and a bunch of other customers') information. Jonathan overheard our calls and frustration in working it out and then said, "I always knew there was something funny about those Soviets." So I updated him on our political status with Russia and also reminded him that people from everywhere can be good and bad.

12/10 - Joy started climbing over thresholds even when there is no change in height.

12/10 - Joy took two steps to Mommy

12/11 - Four steps

12/16 - Joy went from sitting to standing without pulling up on anything.

10/3 - Joy's diaper was dry all night long. She went in the potty three or four times. This was exciting to me and so the next night I prepared to be diaperless. I spread a waterproof pad, with towels on top. But she and I are so wiggly during the night, it was hard to keep the towels straight and then she was cold without anything on her lower half and when she did wet the towels, changing them was a pain. So, we're not ready to go diaperless yet, but we do have success with pottying in the night. However, recently (read: several weeks) Joy has been screaming in the night, whether it's changing her diaper or putting her on the potty. I found that if I'm aware of more subtle movements I can nurse her before she screams (but that is her first vocalization) but I am at a loss for the hygiene part. Do I just put her in a paper diaperand undo all the work and awareness of needing to go? Or do I persist in hopes that she'll stop screaming before we both go insane with the sleep interruptions? I need to go look at forums for suggestions.

10/5 - Joy got her uppder left lateral incisor.

10/5 - Jonathan, "I don't feel like Dad-o is a grandpa, 'cause he still goes up on roofs and stuff." (More)

9/13 - Every time we go into PIttsburgh, we cross the Allegheny River. Faith always asks me what river we are going over. This day, she said, "Mom, did that be the Alligator River?" (Now, she says it correctly to the best of her speech ability and names it every time. She has a little 'Allegheny River' song that she sings. It sounds like "Ahwee-daynee widduh") (More)